Helping pork producers lower feed costs

Jul 17, 2018

Farmers could reduce their costs of production without impairing pig performance

By Kaitlynn Anderson
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Canadian pork producers may soon have a better understanding of how feeding strategies can affect pig health and performance.

Brandon Lillie and Vahab Farzan, two researchers at the University of Guelph, are working with a team of graduate students to examine “the impact of feed quality and health on pig growth performance under commercial farming conditions,” a summary on the Ontario Pork website states.

The team based the project off the late Kees de Lange’s study at the university’s Arkell Research Station. Lange found that low-cost reduced animal protein diets do not negatively impact nursery pigs’ performance, given that the animals do not contract diseases.

Throughout the three-year study, the researchers will provide animals at eight farrow-to-finish operations with one of two feeding programs, the summary said. Each pig will receive either a conventional nursery diet or a reduced animal protein diet.

In addition to examining dietary effects, team members will collect nasal swabs, and blood and fecal samples from the animals to test for such diseases as PRRS, influenza and salmonella, the summary said. They will submit any sick pigs to the Animal Health Laboratory for diagnoses.

So far, the team has achieved results similar to those of the Lange study. The researchers also found that neither feeding program influenced carcass values and quality traits, the summary stated.

While the team has not yet completed the study, producers could save up to $2.82 per pig by reducing the complexity – and thus, cost – of their nursery diets, the researchers estimate.

The project is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 31, 2019, Kathy Zurbrigg, industry outreach coordinator for Ontario Pork, told Farms.com.

National Pork Board/Pork Checkoff photo

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.